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This is a two day combined report for December 19-20, 2015. The rating is a four because the 19th was a five and the 20th was a three. When we showed up to Keller on the 19th there were only two other trailers in the lot. We had the lake to ourselves and the weather was gorgeous. Drove down through snow and lots of blinding white conditions but it was well worth it to be on the lake. My boat finally was christened with her name on this trip, and the BLUE HOOCHIE fished strong for us!

We started our troll downstream of Keller on the big flat of the bend. Noticing the breeze coming out of the north east I decided to troll across the lake towards the bluffs to the south. On this crossing, to my surprise and delight, we picked up my first ever Roosevelt kokanee over about 280 feet of water. It fell victim to an orange Kekeda fly on a long line which continued to produce for us throughout the rest of the day. Fishing was not fast and furious but it was definitely enough to keep us busy for five or six hours and merit a five rating.

I think we ended the day with ten kokanee to the boat plus some bonus rainbow and I am not complaining at all about catching ten chunk kokanee. Not to mention I think we had three doubles and one triple. The triple was all rainbow on a close to shore pass, but it was still pretty awesome. The second day was a different story. My fishing buddy and I were exhausted and let that get the better of us sleeping in until 9 or 10. It had been a calm beautiful morning but by the time we had breakfast and were down to the lake it had started to snow.

In an open boat it was miserable, sleet and wind and WET and COLD! But we stuck in there and managed some fish. We almost had our kokanee limit but the last one we hooked wrapped up in the downrigger cable and broke off the stinger hook it was hooked on. Definitely pulling my balls in from now on. This was a major bummer because we would have quit if we boated that fish, but we kept fishing in search of our last koke only to hook 3 or 4 more rainbow. We ended with three kokes and a few rainbow.

Our method was my standard kokanee gear, 4/0 dodgers (I prefer luhr jenson but did also ran a double d), with 8 to 10 inch leaders to hoochies with smile blades or flies with smile blades. Size four octupus hooks were tipped with white shoepeg corn and krill scent or corn marinated in bloody tuna oil. I ran a big husky jerk for a while but we were getting too much interest on the other stuff so I just stuck with what was working. Off of the two downrigger rods we ran a pink and an orange hoochie. These were put 130 feet back and 12 to 15 feet down. Off the long line I tied a 1/4 ounce egg weight above the dodger 18 inches and set it back 150 feet. Pink and orange seemed to produce equally, but the orange kekeda fly may have produced as much as both downrigger rods. When we had a fish on it seemed to attract others and we picked up all our doubles while fighting fish.

My question to you all is what are thoughts on set backs? I know several don't run them as far, but we didn't pick up fish unless we were running long setbacks. Any thoughts are appreciated although maybe better for a forum post. Enjoy the video, I think its my favorite of the three we have so far. Thanks to all who post on Roosevelt that get to fish it more frequently than us and tight lines to all.

Fishman_Kuzan

2/20/2016 3:32:00 PM

Trolling speed was 1.7 mph, I wanted to add

BDA

2/20/2016 6:34:00 PM

A little late by a month but nice report.

Fishman_Kuzan

2/20/2016 7:30:00 PM

Sorry BDA going to try to be more on time from now on, thanks for checking it out

cobrar543

2/21/2016 10:50:00 AM

I have found that the farther back I am, the bigger and more I catch. I use some sidewinder side planners and get a lot running away from the boat too.

afk

2/23/2016 6:45:00 AM

Hey Fishman_Kuzan , good to see a post from you. I thought of you as I passed thru Lions Ferry on my way to the Tucannon elk hunting last fall. Are you still there?
Anyhow, I like a minimum of 100 Ft. set back on downrigger and at least 175 on the surface lines. That being said, one can't just turn around and go back through them.
I fished Crescent Bay the morning of the Super Bowl. So we were not far from one another. One RBT I hooked on a J-9 orange and gold Rapala on my flat line. As I got it to the boat, it tangled in my downrigger line. I tried to just pop the line out of the clip as the fish was next to the boat. My mouth fell open as I watched my swivel open up and my brand new Rapala and the fish disappear! But, there was no time to mess around and mope. The fish was tangled on my downrigger rods line. This time the clip popped as it should. A few cranks and into the net came an 18'' RBT, my Rapala and my downrigger rods line. What a tangled mess! My hands got colder then heck untangling it all. But, all be it unconventional, it was the big fish for the day. And I got my Rapala back!
Will you be at the get together in Chelan this year?
Take care, Andy

Fishman_Kuzan

2/23/2016 12:54:00 PM

Afk, good to hear from you, I saw us in the video for the get together two years ago gettin our grub. Always something exciting on the water great story! Living at and loving Lyons Ferry. Hope the elk hunt went better for you than most reports I heard. Hoping to make the get together this year, had a broken ankle during the last one. Guess we will stick with the long setbacks!

Part-Time

2/23/2016 7:20:00 PM

Just watched your video, good fun for sure, nicely done. Like the bend in that red rod, what is that? December was way kinder to me than February has been.

Fishman_Kuzan

2/25/2016 6:03:00 PM

Those rods are about the best thing ever for kokanee, lamiglas jared johnson team kokanee ultralights. Mine are the 7 foot 6 variety and I feel that is plenty. Watching them go off on a top line is like watching a steelhead crush a plug backtrolling, and you can actually fight the fish. I picked mine up on an amazon warehouse deal for about 60 bucks a piece. Definitely reccomend! Thanks for watching the video, it was a little long and hopefully they will just get better. In less than 24 hrs we will be on the water, can't wait...

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